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Would you expect this to happen?

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Hi.
I've got yet another noobish question.
I've just upgraded my system to run two gtx 470's.
Problem is that when both cards are working at 100% (according to msi afterburner)
I seem to be having power problems.

After about an hour and a half of playing Crysis 2 the screen goes blank (you can still hear sound) and won't come back on until I hit the reset button. If I go to the Nvidia control panel and turn the "SLI anti aliasing" off; the second card is only working at about 30% of maximum and there's no trouble’s there at all.
Crysis 2 is the only game I’ve spent any extended period of time on since I’ve upgraded the graphics and psu. So it might be just that game, but I'll give you my system specs and see what you guys think.

(Everything is running at stock clock speeds)
CPU: Core i7 950
MOBO: asrock xtreme 6
Memory: 6 GB of 1600 MHz corsair ddr3
GPU: two gtx 470's
PSU: Silverstone 850W ST85F-P Strider Plus Power Supply, Peak 950W, 100% Modular cable.




As far as I know that psu should be more than capable of handling that system; but apparently not, there's no overheating issues either. I crank the fans to about 80 using msi after burner and that keeps the gpu's at 60-70 degrees c (at load)

So would you expect the previously mentioned problem to occur based on the information?

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Homebuilt system Master

you are correct HW wise your rig looks sound. you may just have a bum PSU or it may be the game. hard to tell with further testing. try playing something else. or if you have 3Dmark Vantage have it loop 20 times (this stresses out my 570's)
Homebuilt system Master

Every once in a while my 470s will do that (different games). Usually it's due to overheating. Generally my games black-screen like that around 85-90C, so I would generate a custom fan profile, as the "Auto" setting in MSI Afterburner never speeds up quickly enough at high temps (I use it too).

Also, check your NVidia Control Panel SLI settings to make sure that your cards are in fact working in SLI. Otherwise, games that use SLI won't, which could explain GPU2 only running at 30%.

I can't imagine your PSU being an issue, since my 650W can handle my 470s OCed, and it doesn't seem like a PSU issue.

jerreddredd said:
you are correct HW wise your rig looks sound. you may just have a bum PSU or it may be the game. hard to tell with further testing. try playing something else. or if you have 3Dmark Vantage have it loop 20 times (this stresses out my 570's)


Thanks man. I'll DL 3Dmark Vantage when I get home and see what happens.

I did have the idea to play another high demanding game to see the results, but I don't have any graphically demanding games lying around that I want to spend an hour and a half or more on.
When I get a few more games that I'm keen on, I'll see what happens and come back here with more information. (I'm obviously hoping that it's just a crysis 2 problem)


boiler1990 said:
Every once in a while my 470s will do that (different games). Usually it's due to overheating. Generally my games black-screen like that around 85-90C, so I would generate a custom fan profile, as the "Auto" setting in MSI Afterburner never speeds up quickly enough at high temps (I use it too).

Also, check your NVidia Control Panel SLI settings to make sure that your cards are in fact working in SLI. Otherwise, games that use SLI won't, which could explain GPU2 only running at 30%.

I can't imagine your PSU being an issue, since my 650W can handle my 470s OCed, and it doesn't seem like a PSU issue.


Yeah, I always crank the fans up on afterburner when I'm playing games. The auto setting sucks; my cards get to high 80's early 90's, and that's with an antec 900 equipped with extra fans (5 fans in total)

Also; SLI is enabled on the nvidia control panel; both cards are working at 100% when I'm playing crysis 1, but crysis 2 the second card is only running at 30%. Unless I turn on SLI anti aliasing, then I get both of them working at max, then the game crashes after playing for a while.

Like jerreddredd said though, it's hard to tell without further testing, so I’ll try his suggestion of 3dmark vantage. If everything remains stable I'll be able to know with a reasonable amount of certainty that it's a problem with crysis 2.

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Homebuilt system Master

I'm assuming that your cards are in the 1 and 2 slots on your board? Try moving the second one to the third slot if you can; that should increase airflow for the GPUs.

boiler1990 said:
I'm assuming that your cards are in the 1 and 2 slots on your board? Try moving the second one to the third slot if you can; that should increase airflow for the GPUs.


Yeah they are. The sli bridge that came with the motherboard is only long enough for the cards to be placed into the slots right next to each other.
As far as my comment stating that the cards get to 80 to 90 degrees; I should have mentioned that's only the case when the fans are on auto. When I crank them up to about 80% I get a far more tolerable temperature of about 60-70 degrees (this is all while playing games)

To my knowledge that temperature is what's expected and well below temperatures which might cause overheating.
Which leads me to the conclusion that overheating is not the problem. (unless the software is lying)
Homebuilt system Master

What brand are your 470s? EVGA sells high flow brackets, which I purchased a while ago, and my temps dropped about 10 degrees while gaming. If your cards aren't EVGA, I don't know if they will work, but it's worth looking to see if they are. They were DEFINITELY worth the purchase though. I was about to drop $500 on liquid cooling ;) 

Even though the GPU can handle up to 109C, the computer will shut off the GPU below that (around 80-90C, which is where this problem exists). I would definitely consider getting a longer SLI bridge so you can put them in slots 1 and 3. Doing this helped my GTX 460s from overheating (stock settings) like this, and I never thought about moving my 470s back to 1 and 2.

I have an update.
I brought Crysis 1 and Crysis warhead in a bundle for $20 on Friday.
I've been playing crysis 1 on delta with all the settings on very high with no shut downs what so ever. Both cards are working in perfect sync at maximum with a temperature of around 65-70 degrees c (which is acceptable I think)

I also looped 3d mark vantage on extreme several times and it also worked with no hiccups. So it must be a bug with Crysis two.

Just on a side note. The reason I purchased the crysis bundle is because I never played warhead, and I wanted something to do on my "saving money weekend" whilst I wait for my new internet to be connected.
So you can imagine my frustration after having payed for the game and receiving an error for the "online verification" bull$%#t.
You try and do the right thing and pay for a game, and you still get effed over.

++End of rant++
Homebuilt system Master

It wouldn't surprise me if Crysis 2 had some issues. It sounds like some sort of SLI driver isn't working properly or something.

Crytek makes good games, but sometimes they can't even code properly. I had so many issues getting Crysis 1 change to my resolution; it kept shutting the game down on me.
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